It is an encyclopedic book that covers various aspects of literature, wisdom, and sayings. The author of Al-Mustatraf fi Kull Fann Mustazraf does not rely on a single subject or specific idea. However, this does not mean that it is a book with scattered ideas and topics, lacking connection and links, because when its author wrote it, he aimed for a specific goal, which is to develop human virtues in people, after many of the prerequisites and foundations for their construction were lost in his era, due to the circumstances that contributed to debauchery, licentiousness, and the abandonment of good Islamic values, in addition to the prevalence of many customs and traditions that have no connection to the heavenly faith.

Therefore, the author of Al-Mustatraf tried with all his might to collect and arrange much of what he targeted within comprehensive chapters of concise sayings, so that we see the chapter beginning either by mentioning verses from the Holy Qur’an that are appropriate to its subject, then following them with hadiths of the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, that do not deviate from their content, and then adding to them many wisdoms, stories, poems, and amusing jokes that do not fear the intended meaning of proving it, and the goal that he aims to highlight through it.

The author has deviated from much of the success in most of his chapters, although we sometimes notice digressions or comments that may offend good taste and repel temperament because they go beyond the spirit with which the author opens his chapters and topics. However, we can explain this and attribute it to the characteristics that prevailed among most of the writers of that era, which is that each of them aimed to make his work comprehensive, including most of the facts and information, so that we find him digging for them within their scope, extracting them from their place, and gathering them all in an organized, embellished, and arranged manner under their common banner and single idea, so that they appear as a whole with interconnected parts, strong ties, coherent links, cast in an organized compositional mold, speaking of the efforts of its author and of a personality equipped with his own records, innovative opinions, or reasoned criticisms.

These digressions and comments are but some of the episodes through which the writer wanted to add fun and humor after seriousness and sobriety. He aims to prove them by entertaining himself and keeping boredom away from the reader. Due to the importance of this book, Dr. Mufid Muhammad Qumaiha took care to verify the material of this book, explain its text, and put its footnotes and index dedicated to showing the various chapters of the book.